Datasheet

PIC16F627A/628A/648A
DS40044A-page 28 Preliminary  2002 Microchip Technology Inc.
4.3 PCL and PCLATH
The program counter (PC) is 13-bits wide. The low byte
comes from the PCL register, which is a readable and
writable register. The high byte (PC<12:8>) is not
directly readable or writable and comes from PCLATH.
On any RESET, the PC is cleared. Figure 4-4 shows
the two situations for loading the PC. The upper exam-
ple in Figure 4-4 shows how the PC is loaded on a write
to PCL (PCLATH<4:0> → PCH). The lower example in
Figure 4-4 shows how the PC is loaded during a CALL
or GOTO instruction (PCLATH<4:3> → PCH).
FIGURE 4-4: LOADING OF PC IN
DIFFERENT SITUATIONS
4.3.1 COMPUTED GOTO
A computed GOTO is accomplished by adding an offset
to the program counter (ADDWF PCL). When doing a
table read using a computed GOTO method, care
should be exercised if the table location crosses a PCL
memory boundary (each 256-byte block). Refer to the
application note “Implementing a Table Read” (AN556).
4.3.2 STACK
The PIC16F627A/628A/648A family has an 8-level
deep x 13-bit wide hardware stack (Figure 4-1). The
stack space is not part of either program or data space
and the stack pointer is not readable or writable. The
PC is PUSHed onto the stack when a CALL instruction
is executed or an interrupt causes a branch. The stack
is POPed in the event of a RETURN, RETLW or a RET-
FIE instruction execution. PCLATH is not affected by a
PUSH or POP operation.
The stack operates as a circular buffer. This means that
after the stack has been PUSHed eight times, the ninth
push overwrites the value that was stored from the first
push. The tenth push overwrites the second push (and
so on).
4.4 Indirect Addressing, INDF and
FSR Registers
The INDF register is not a physical register. Addressing
the INDF register will cause indirect addressing.
Indirect addressing is possible by using the INDF reg-
ister. Any instruction using the INDF register actually
accesses data pointed to by the file select register
(FSR). Reading INDF itself indirectly will produce 00h.
Writing to the INDF register indirectly results in a no-
operation (although STATUS bits may be affected). An
effective 9-bit address is obtained by concatenating the
8-bit FSR register and the IRP bit (STATUS<7>), as
shown in Figure 4-5.
A simple program to clear RAM location 20h-2Fh using
indirect addressing is shown in Example 4-1.
EXAMPLE 4-1: Indirect Addressing
PC
12 8 7 0
5
PCLATH<4:0>
PCLATH
Instruction with
ALU result
GOTO, CALL
Opcode <10:0>
8
PC
12 11 10 0
11
PCLATH<4:3>
PCH PCL
87
2
PCLATH
PCH PCL
PCL as
Destination
Note 1: There are no STATUS bits to indicate
stack overflow or stack underflow
conditions.
2: There are no instructions/mnemonics
called PUSH or POP. These are actions
that occur from the execution of the
CALL, RETURN, RETLW and RETFIE
instructions, or the vectoring to an
interrupt address.
MOVLW 0x20 ;initialize pointer
MOVWF FSR ;to RAM
NEXT CLRF INDF ;clear INDF register
INCF FSR ;inc pointer
BTFSS FSR,4 ;all done?
GOTO NEXT ;no clear next
;yes continue